The Department of Sociology, Maharaja Bir Bikram College, Agartala, Tripura organised a One-Day National Webinar on the theme “National Education Policy 2020: An Integrated Approach to Address the Social Challenges” on 29th September 2021. The webinar started at 10:00 AM with a welcome address delivered by Ms. Tracy L Darlong, Organizing Secretary of the National Webinar cum Head, Department of Sociology, MBB College, Agartala. In her welcome address, Ms. Darlong highlighted the main aims, objectives and importance of the webinar. This was followed by an address from Dr. Dipannita Chakraborty, Principal, Maharaja Bir Bikram College, Agartala, and the Chairperson of the Webinar. In her deliberation Principal madam put forward the need to understand the new Education Policy 2020. She urged upon for the change of mindset, which is of utmost importance for all the stakeholders in the society for the viable implementation of the new National Education Policy 2020. Dr. Chakraborty concluded her address by appreciating the effort put up by the Department of Sociology, MBB College to organize this One-Day National Webinar, which is a relevant topic in the current context.

Thereafter, Prof. Manisha Priyam from the National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, New Delhi delivered the Keynote Address. In her address, Prof. Priyam gave a detailed deliberation on the theme of the webinar focusing on the National Education Policy 2020, which visualises to provide a quality education that is beneficial to meet the growing economy in India. She highlighted, the new education policy majorly aims to achieve the three aspects such as quality, equity and integrity in the education system from schooling to higher education. Prof. Priyam concluded her address by mentioning that the NEP 2020 is aiming to develop creative potential skills and analytical thinking that is vital in the global market. With this, the inaugural session was completed. Thereafter, the technical session started.

The first speaker of the technical session was Prof. L. Lam Khan Piang, Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad. The topic of his lecture was “Social Challenges Facing Education in India: An Assessment of National Education Policy 2020”. Prof. Piang started the session by stating that the National Education Policy 2020, which was launched on 29th July 2020, has all the promising key points that are expected to prove beneficial. It will enable an individual to study one or more specialized areas of interest at a deep level, along with developing students’ character, scientific temper, creativity, the spirit of service and enhance 21st Century capabilities across a range of disciplines including Science, Social Science, Arts, Humanities among others. Prof. Piang concluded his lecture by highlighting that, the new policy also focused on inclusive and quality education while targeting to address the rising developmental imperatives of India.

The second speaker and the last speaker of the technical session of the national webinar was Dr. Anuja from the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusion Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She lectured on “Gender Sensitivity and Inclusion: An Integrated Approach to Address the Social Challenges under NEP 2020”. Dr. Anuja began her lecture with a brief background that how education plays a powerful role in building a nation and decides the future and the destiny of its people as the impact of education is long- lasting one in terms of growth and development of the nation and its citizens. While entirely, her deliberation was mainly focused on the emerging various challenges from different sections in the society giving special reference to Gender and Inclusion which the NEP 2020 must address.

The technical session was concluded with this note, and it was followed by a question and answer session, where the floor was opened to all the participants. In this session, the participants raised several queries and questions to both the resource persons. Accordingly, the resource persons clarified all the doubts of the participants and answered all the queries that were addressed to them.

Coming to the concluding part of the Webinar, Dr. Dhruba Charan Hota, Associate Professor, Department of Commerce and Secretary Teachers’ Council, Maharaja Bir Bikram College, Agartala proposed the vote of thanks by summarizing the entire webinar and appreciated the efforts of Sociology Department, MBB College, Agartala for organizing such an important and pertinent webinar in the college.

With this, the One-Day National Webinar came to an end. A total of 128 participants have registered for the webinar, which includes participants from Ranchi, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bangalore, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Tripura etc.

Ms. Tracy L Darlong

Assistant Professor

Organizing Secretary Cum Head

Department of Sociology

MBB College, Agarta